The most excited
part of the Championship - Play off. The spectators are taking
their places along the starting and he finishing lines (top
row of the photos).

Also the Top 10 players eligible for Play off are taking their
places at the starting line - from left to right in the
descending order based on the points they scored for the
previous 12 Puzzle parts (second row of the photos). Ulrich Voigt of Germany
(the leftmost) - with the
most points among them, and Byron Calver of Canada (the
rightmost) - with the
least. Thus, Ulrich starts first with other players starting
some time later - their point differences to each other are
converted to the respective time spans.

The goal of Play off is very simple - to pass through the ten desks. The one who can do that first wins.
There is a sheet with puzzle lying face down on each
desk. When a contestant is at the desk he flips the puzzle
over and starts solving it. As soon as it is done he moves to
the next desk in his line (the 3rd and the 4th rows of
photos).

After that someone from the organizers checks his solution and
defines whether the solution is correct or not (the middle
photo in the 3rd row). Once the solution is correct the one
who verified it raises his hand (the first photo in the 5th
row). The sign is lucky to the contestant. In case the sign is
of two hands crossed (meaning the solution wasn't correct),
the contestant earns a 5-minute penalty for any following
stage during which he is not allowed to solve puzzles at all.
There is also one more way to earn a 5-minute penalty - to
give up the puzzle. Giving up 10 puzzles in a row could bring
you the victory, of course, unless someone else could reach
the finishing line within that time but without total giving
up. Fortunately this time the "giving-up" strategy wasn't the
winning. The last two rows of the photos below show what
happened at the finishing line in fact...

Wei-Hwa Huang of
US (right) has just solved his last puzzle. But in order to
become the champion he has to wait until his 5-minute penalty
earned at the previous stages is over. Niels Roest of the
Netherlands beside him has just shaken Wei-Hwa's hand -
Wei-Hwa is only several minutes apart form the victory...

But there is
still Ulrich Voigt. His own penalty is over at the moment and
he has less than five minutes to get the title for himself. It
will happen only in case he can solve the last puzzle within
that tiny time span, still left from the Wei-Hwa's penalty,
and thus stealing the victory from Wei-Hwa...

He really
did it! The 2005 Champion is known. It is Ulrich Voigt of
Germany!

The second is
Wei-Hwa Huang.

And the
third is Niels Roest.

Now as the
three winners are known the entire Conference Hall is suddenly
burst of applause with the snap-shot flashes of the trio all
around. We join the congratulations!